Illegal firearms in Europe: a collection

[AdamG]

Stand-alone post for max visibility.

Rhetorical question: what happens when these gangs are reinforced with returning ISIS combat veterans?

Mean Streets: Denmark Cooks Up Ban to Prevent Takeover by Multiethnic Mobs

Incessant wars raging between rival gangs in parts of the capital city of Copenhagen have become a problem of national importance. As the death toll rises in step with the number of shootouts, the national government is pledging decisive steps to crack down on gangland crime.
The multiethnic Nrrebro neighborhood ofCopenhagen has been a hotbed ofgangland crime forthe last six months, yielding a bloody harvest ofthree dead and 25 injured in42 shooting episodes, which can be attributed toa turf war betweenLoyal toFamilia (LTF) and Brothas, both including many non-Danes.
The snowballing law-breaking and persistent infighting making national headlines has spurred the Danish authorities intoaction. Copenhagen Police director Anne Tnnes has said that the situation is being taken seriously, stressing that the police measures were beginning toshow results.

According toTnnes, over60 local gangsters were detained and 3,300 local residents were searched ina massive effort toconfiscate asmany firearms aspossible.

(So much for the EU's so-called 'enlightened' restrictive firearms laws, wherein only the law-abiding are punished).

LTF was previously described ashaving the most elaborate and consistent strategy ofall the Danish gangs. It was also considered tobe atthe root ofall gang conflicts inthe Nordic country bythe National Police Investigation Center, being involved inthree outof three gang conflicts. LTF is said tobe atwar withBrabrand Group, Black Army and Brothas, most ofwhich are dominated byimmigrants withnon-Western backgrounds.
"In recent years, it has primarily been aboutthese immigrant youths. These are young men, witha background inthe Middle East. Most are born and raised inDenmark, yet a great deal has yet togain Danish citizenship," University ofAalborg criminologist Kim Mller told Norwegian national broadcaster NRK.
LTF is fronted byShuaib Khan, the son oflocal politician Wallait Khan, currently a political maverick. By the age of30, Khan junior has amassed verdicts totaling 12 years ofprison time. Khan's release fromprison earlier this year was speculated tohave fueled the Danish turf wars.

https://sputniknews.com/europe/20171...gangland-wars/

[AdamG]

From January 2017 -
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SWEDISH police have demanded a crack down on illegal firearms trade as Malmo is being overrun by armed thugs amid the European Union's failure to halt weapons smuggling from Balkans.
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http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/...-weapons-trade

From October 2017
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At least four have been seriously injured after at least one gunman reportedly opened fire at a market in Trelleborg, Sweden, according to local authorities, who launched a “major police operation” in response to the incident.

https://www.rt.com/news/406527-swede...oting-injured/

[AdamG]

From January 2016-

Social worker Alexandra Mezher, 22, was murdered in Mlndal on Monday
Gothenburg suburb last year took in more unaccompanied refugee children than anywhere else in the country 4,041 added to a population of 63,000
Received 22.6million to provide housing for unaccompanied minors the most state funding per capita than any town or city in Sweden
Crime figures reveal there were 222 criminal complaints linked to migrant centres between 20 October 2015 and 8 January this year
MailOnline went inside lawless town where eyes of Europe have been watching since the senseless stabbing
See more news on the migrant crisis at www.dailymail.co.uk/migrantcrisis

From June 2016 -

Kotors picture-perfect old town and its setting surrounded by rocky mountains dropping straight to a long bay have earned it first place in Lonely Planets Best in Travel cities list this year.
But the Adriatic idyll of shady limestone alleyways and imposing baroque churches has been spoiled by a spate of armed clashes between criminal gangs, which has led to the government sending in anti-terrorist police to quell the situation and put the city on lockdown.
Six incidents in three months have included gunfights and a murder, according to the reporting network Balkan Insight.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...t-Molndal.html

The most recent incident was a gunfight on 3 June, reportedly between rival drug gangs operating in Kotor.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...urist-paradise

[AdamG]

Historical perspective on Marseille, which within recent memory seems to often be mentioned in the same breath as AK47s found at crime scenes.

In Marseille's long history of organised crime, where murderous mobsters with names such as The Belgian and The Blond became folklore, it's perhaps not surprising that the underworld spawned its own spin-off clothing line.

But France's second city is now battling a new wave of murderous, organised crime gangs. The Mediterranean port city, designated European capital of culture for 2013, has for years worked to shed its gangland image as "Chicago of the south" and rebrand itself as a major city break destination.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...arseille-crime

France outlaws most gun ownership and it’s almost impossible to legally acquire a high-powered rifle such as an AK-47, so where did the weapons in the Nov. 13 terror attack—not to mention the bloody January assault by Islamic terrorists on the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo magazine and the 2012 shootings by a militant in Toulouse—come from?

The answer: Eastern Europe, most likely, where the trafficking of deadly small arms is big, shady business. And where local authorities find it difficult to intervene.

The French government and the European Union know they have a foreign gun problem. But as the chain of attacks illustrates, efforts to tamp down on the flow of weapons have, so far, failed to disarm terrorists.
French police reportedly seized more than 1,500 illegal weapons in 2009 and no fewer than 2,700 in 2010. The number of illegal guns in France has swollen by double-digit percentages annually for several years, Al Jazeera reported, citing figures from Paris-based National Observatory for Delinquency.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/this-i...s-get-to-paris

[AdamG]

POLICE who brought down one of Scotland’s most ruthless crime gangs yesterday pledged to track down and seize their multi-million pound property empire.
Nine of the heavily-armed drugs gang were convicted last week after flooding Scotland with guns and cocaine.
After dismantling their operation, detectives are targeting their dirty fortunes, much of it ploughed into properties on the Costa del Sol and other European holiday resorts.
The gang raked in more than £2m a month by supplying guns and drugs to other organised crime groups.

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DCS McLean said the availability of firearms from Eastern Europe made it easier for the Scottish gang to get their hands on high-quality weapons including a Skorpion submachine gun – the weapon used in the Paris terror attacks in 2015.

https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/weve-b...es-playground/


See also;

Automatic rifles used in January’s Paris attacks that killed 17 have been traced to a shop in Slovakia that sells deactivated weapons as “movie props”, it was reported on Wednesday. The decommissioned weapons legally bought in Slovakia were reconverted to fire live ammunition – a process that gun experts say can take as little as “an hour” to complete – and used in the deadly attacks on a Kosher supermarket and the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, French police reportedly believe.

The Slovakian police officers tracked the guns to a shop in the west of Slovakia, where records revealed they were sold legally, as “expand” (expansion) weapons. The sale of such arms is perfectly legal in Slovakia.
Expansion weapons are once live firearms that have been mechanically deactivated to fire blanks for use as props in movies, for historical re-enactments or private collections.
In Slovakia, such weapons – even the heaviest machine guns – can be sold to anyone over 18 who carries ID. It took five minutes for a Novy Cas reporter to purchase a neutralised VZ 58 the double-action, semi-automatic pistol Coulibaly shows off in a video which emerged after his death. After producing some ID, he walked away with the gun for just €250 (£183).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-Slovakia.html

Huh. There must be a hell of a markup going on here.

The three men had, between them, amassed weapons worth up to €25,000 (£19,000) – including three Kalashnikovs, Soviet-made Tokarev pistols, a Skorpion submachine gun, and a rocket launcher.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...r-weapons.html

[davidbfpo]

This is a report on the case, with an obvious pointer to how the police found a "way in".
Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-42307952

Scotland does have an organized crime problem, but firearm use is low. It appears this gang needed the firepower to extend and protect their activity.

[davidbfpo]

As the Strasbourg killer illustrated Europe has a problem with antique firearms, his revolver was over a hundred years old.

Then I found via Twitter an EU-funded research project, Project Safte on Firearms and Terrorism in Europe. There is a free book, Triggering Terror: Illicit Gun Markets and Firearms Acquisition of Terrorist Networks in Europe, with individual chapters on several European nations.
Link:https://www.flemishpeaceinstitute.eu/safte/publications

In the French chapter on pgs 42-44 there is a Table 6 'Firearms seized in recent attacks inspired by radical Islamist'.
Link:https://www.flemishpeaceinstitute.eu...fte_france.pdfilogies